Advocates in Ohio are stepping up their clean energy efforts in response to the Republican party platform and Project 2025, which detail how a second Trump administration would promote fossil fuels while cutting back federal programs for addressing climate change, environmental justice and equity.

Over the past year, Ohio-based governments and groups have won awards for hundreds of millions of dollars under the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. 

Federal policy takes on added significance in a state like Ohio, where lawmakers have already placed extra hurdles in the way of clean energy development. That has left it up to local governments and private organizations to take the lead in cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Some of that work did move ahead during the former Trump administration, said Mike Foley, director of sustainability for Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland. But, “we had to scramble and struggle to get projects done.”

“Having resources from the federal government makes things so much easier,” Foley said.

Just this week, for example, the Environmental Protection Agency announced a grant of roughly $129 million to a partnership among Cuyahoga County and the cities of Cleveland and Painesville to build a 35 megawatt solar power facility and 10 megawatts of battery storage, and to shut down a coal-fired power plant.

Earlier in July, the Federal Transit Authority awarded a $10.6 million grant under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority for ten electric buses and chargers for low-income, high-ridership areas. More than $40 million will go to other projects in Ohio. 

“These dollars are changing communities for the better,” said Chris Tavenor, general counsel for the Ohio Environmental Council Action Fund.

Project 2025 — a policy blueprint for a possible Trump presidency produced by the Heritage Foundation — calls for repealing the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, threatening funding for additional work in Ohio and elsewhere, as well as weakening environmental protections and programs to promote equity. While former President Donald Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025, he has multiple links to authors and editors of the roughly 900-page report, and has repeatedly pledged to end Biden energy policies he has dubbed the “green new scam.”

“This is getting rid of everything that’s moved the needle forward on climate and energy,” said Neil Waggoner, the Midwest manager for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal program. 

While it’s unclear whether who will win in November, advocates are nonetheless preparing for a potential Trump presidency now.

Maximizing gains

The GOP platform and Project 2025 make clear what types of energy policies to expect if there’s a change in administration, said Melinda Pierce, legislative director for the Sierra Club.

“It’s in black and white,” Pierce said. So now, the Sierra Club is focusing on how to “Trump-proof the gains we have made.”

One push is to help local officials identify and apply for funding opportunities that are available now. “We don’t want to leave that money on the table,” Pierce said, adding that once money is in hand it “buys a lot of goodwill and inertia.”

That goodwill might limit the extent to which federal lawmakers would scale back programs bringing money to their states, according to conservative clean energy advocates who met at the Republican National Convention last week. Others are also collaborating with partners to get money for projects in hand as soon as possible.

“We are taking a proactive approach to reach out to funders to secure funding to continue the work and advocacy for energy, climate and environmental justice,” said SeMia Bray, co-leader for Black Environmental Leaders, which collaborates with regional partners to provide resources and support for environmental and economic justice initiatives.

Jonathan Welle, executive director for Cleveland Owns, said his organization plans to apply this summer for a “substantial federal grant that would put money in the hands of longtime northeast Ohio communities, specifically Black and Brown communities, so they can chart their own energy future.” 

Welle said he’s not at liberty to discuss the proposed project’s details, but did say the group expects it would hear about grant awards late this year or in early 2025. 

“But the timing for that and the follow through from the federal government…is highly dependent on the next few political moves, including November’s election,” he added.

Work to secure federal funding didn’t just spring up overnight, though. The Reimagine Appalachia coalition has been working for several years with stakeholders in Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky and Pennsylvania to build capacity to absorb and direct that funding. Periodic information sessions spotlight funding opportunities and promote networking for local governments or others to develop ideas for projects. There’s even a forthcoming “grant of the month club” event.

“It’s really important to be doing this work and making sure that this current opportunity is taken advantage of,” said Amanda Woodrum, one of Reimagine Appalachia’s co-directors.

At the same time, she warned against speeding up the process too quickly.

“It takes time to put the infrastructure in place to actually direct it and make sure [funding] doesn’t go to the same old political channels,” Woodrum explained.

Going too quickly also increases the risk of backlash if projects aren’t well thought out, don’t provide what people in communities want, or otherwise fail.

“You don’t want it to go sideways,” Woodrum said. “You want to make sure you do it right.”

Getting the word out

Messaging is another top priority for advocates as the fall election draws near.  

“We are continuing our efforts of voter education, making sure the communities we love and support have updated registration and understand the importance of this election, and all elections on the local level,” Bray said.

Volunteers for Save Ohio Parks have been trying to limit drilling and fracking under state-owned parks and wildlife areas since early 2023, and now face the possibility of more drilling and fossil fuel development under a possible Republican administration.

“Yet Save Ohio Parks is determined to stay positive and keep our eyes on the prize,” said Melinda Zemper, a member of the group’s steering committee. The group is expanding its volunteer base and building additional coalitions with other environmental groups in Ohio.

Advocates also want to get out the word about benefits from current federal programs so voters are aware of what’s at stake.

“The Ohio Environmental Council Action Fund will continue its work to emphasize how the Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and other important federal programs benefit Ohio communities and help combat the causes of climate change,” Tavenor said. Without continued progress, climate change costs for Ohioans will get worse, he noted.

Messaging by the Sierra Club, Ohio Environmental Council Action Fund and other advocates also highlights the implications of Project 2025 for equity and democracy.

“Project 2025’s extreme proposals are specifically structured to benefit polluting industries at the expense of the health and environment of our communities,” Tavenor said. “Simply put, Project 2025 is a government takeover that threatens our democracy, designed by wealthy billionaires to benefit themselves and their power-hungry allies.”

Ohio advocates seek to ‘Trump-proof’ recent gains made on clean energy and climate is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Editor’s note: No Republicans voted for the Inflation Reduction Act. A previous version of this story incorrectly reported that fact.

Nestled under a glass dome between a humid tropical jungle and a surreal cactus landscape during the Republican National Convention last week, Republican leaders extolled a glowing clean energy future for America, and avoided mentioning nominee Donald J. Trump. 

Their message — delivered at Milwaukee’s Mitchell Park Domes botanical garden — was notably different from the tune a few miles away in the Fiserv Forum, where RNC speakers such as North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum called for American “energy dominance” based on fossil fuels.

Trump, in his speech the final night of the convention, promised to “end the electric vehicle mandate on day one” and railed against the “green new scam” — pledges echoed in the Republican party’s platform — to loud cheers. 

In interviews with the Energy News Network, Republican leaders dismissed Trump’s frequent demonization of solar, wind and electric vehicles as empty rhetoric and expressed optimism that if elected, he would embrace the job-creation and innovation potential of clean energy.

“I think he’s been tougher on mandates,” said Utah Rep. John Curtis, who is on the U.S. Senate ballot for November. “A lot of my colleagues feel like [energy] should be more market-based-driven, and I feel the same way. This should be market-driven.”

Advocates at the event from across the political spectrum also emphasized the role of states and Congress in promoting clean energy, in lieu of support from the president.

Trump’s antipathy to renewables “does give pause to those who are advocates for clean energy and wanting to address climate change,” said Heather Reams, president of Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, a nonprofit organization that works to engage with Republicans. 

“However, there are two ends of Pennsylvania Avenue — there’s the executive branch, and then there’s Congress. We’ve been spending a lot of time over the last decade working with members of Congress who are much more engaged on climate and advocacy and acceleration of clean energy. And that’s different than it was in 2016, when there was very little engagement on climate” from Republican lawmakers.

But it’s debatable whether Republican lawmakers are engaging on climate now. No Republican senators or House members voted for the Inflation Reduction Act, arguably the nation’s largest clean energy bill ever. And while the House Republican Climate Caucus has 83 members, many are ardent fossil-fuel boosters, and environmental advocates question the group’s seriousness.

Trump’s first term saw rollbacks to federal regulations governing waste from coal plants, withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord, revocation of California’s ability to set stricter tailpipe emission standards, relaxed standards on oil and gas extraction, and much more. In a 2021 analysis, the New York Times counted 28 air pollution and emissions rules that Trump successfully reversed, and 12 related to drilling and fossil fuel extraction. 

Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation policy agenda Trump has distanced himself from but is promoted by prominent backers, seeks to significantly undercut the EPA’s power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, including by reducing the number of industries required to report emissions. The document refers to climate change as a “perceived threat” and routinely characterizes federal agencies’ work on climate as a politically motivated distraction.

Nonetheless, Reams said she’s hopeful Trump won’t seek to dismantle programs and incentives passed during the Biden administration, as he has pledged to do.  

“We still have governors that are benefiting from a lot of the laws that have been passed” under Biden, she said. “Congress took those votes. They’re supportive of all the economic development that’s coming into their districts. So I think there’s going to be a little bit more of a scalpel than a sledgehammer approach to some of the legislation that was passed” if Trump wins.

Invenergy president Jim Murphy said he would hope to appeal to Trump as a businessman.

“We’re here to share with them what we’re doing as a company, and as an industry, to complete this energy transition the responsible way,” he told the Energy News Network. “There’s no doubt it’s been started, so to do it in the right way. One thing that we’re observing is that the goals and the objectives of the groups are not that different. It seems we have a lot more common ground than people might think.” 

Michigan Conservative Energy Forum executive director Ed Rivet watched the RNC from afar, and noted all the blame heaped on Biden for rising gasoline prices.    

“All of that is fully expected rhetoric for these sorts of events, you’re sometimes throwing out red-meat soundbites,” Rivet said. “But the more important thing for the future if there’s a second Trump administration is, are they going to promote technology being the response to demand for climate action. Because demand for climate action is not going to go away just because we change administrations.”   

Rivet said Republicans — and Democrats — should prioritize competing with China on battery and other clean energy technology development and manufacturing.   

“The RNC is missing an opportunity to say, ‘Our response to climate is going to be unleashing the power of technology in America like no other country can do,’” he said. “Let’s build the best technology in the world. The RNC is missing the opportunity to punch right at the core of how do we really respond to our circumstances.” 

Ryan Huebsch, executive director of the Wisconsin Conservative Energy Forum, also skipped the convention and said he has resisted delving into the official GOP platform. But he is hopeful about conservative leadership on clean energy, citing the expansion of wind power in Iowa under Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, a delegate at the Republican convention. Between 2017 — when Reynolds took office — and 2022, the state’s wind power grew from 37% to 62% of its net generation, ranking second nationwide behind Texas in wind capacity.    

“They’re exporting wind energy everywhere,” Huebsch said. “Hopefully Wisconsin can be an exporter of clean and renewable energy too. We’d like to see a mix of some of President Biden’s current strategies, and see where we can come in with Trump (if he is elected). Hopefully there’s some middle ground there.” 

Polling shows little concern about climate among Republicans. A March report from Pew Research Center noted that only 12% of Republicans felt climate change should be a top priority for Congress and the president, and only 23% see it as a major threat to the country. 

Indeed, conservative clean energy proponents prefer to tout the job creation, energy independence and individual lifestyle benefits of clean energy, as opposed to the climate implications. 

Katie Bowen, a volunteer at the Republican convention and former staffer for Colorado Republican legislators, lamented that she had to give up her beloved electric vehicle when she moved to Colorado from Las Vegas. She considered Colorado “as granola as you get,” but was surprised to find few charging stations. She also became frustrated that Colorado was not doing more to promote nuclear energy, including as a way to power new data centers.

“How in the U.S. can we not only make energy clean, efficient and renewable, but also how do we power our own technology” — especially new data centers, she said. “Conservatives not only need to accept, but also get behind the whole thing of conservation is not just a political issue. It’s an everyone issue. It’s an American issue.”

Conservative clean energy advocates keep Trump’s rhetoric at arm’s length is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

This story was co-published by Energy News Network, the Maine Monitor, and Grist.

Ron Huber rifled through a thick folder full of decades of state environmental records outside a community hall in the tiny coastal Maine town of Searsport. For the longtime local conservation activist, the scene inside was a familiar one: dozens of neighbors, workers and environmentalists mingled over pizza and coffee, discussing the merits of a proposed industrial project that has potential to transform the local economy, but at the expense of a locally beloved natural area.

“We’ve seen these things rise and fall many times,” Huber said outside the event late this past spring. Conservationists have celebrated over the decades as plans for a coal plant and a liquefied natural gas terminal on Sears Island came and went without success. 

This latest proposal presents a new kind of conflict. Rather than pitting townspeople against a corporate polluter, this development would support clean energy and be integral to the state’s plan for cutting climate emissions.

In May, the state applied for a $456 million federal grant to build a specially designed port on about 100 acres of Sears Island to support Maine’s nascent floating offshore wind industry. About two-thirds of the 941 acre island is in permanent conservation, and the state retains an easement on the rest, which has been reserved for a potential port for years. 

“We’re not optimistic that this one’s going to die under its own weight,” Huber said, noting that the offshore wind port has far more popular support than previous development proposals. 

Visits to recent community events like this one show that, unlike the polarized fights over clean energy projects in other parts of the country, Maine’s wind port is creating more personal divides — challenging residents’ values around climate change, conservation and economic factors. It previews what could be coming as wind grows in the Northeast. 

Conflicting values

“My question is really about why we’re not actually all on the same team,” said Belfast, Maine, resident Julianne Dow inside the community hall, during a question-and-answer period with New England labor organizers. “I’m very pro-union, I’m pro-offshore wind and pro having it here, and for the economic benefits for the region. But I’m also very pro maintaining Sears Island as a precious Midcoast resource.” 

Dow and activists like Huber want the port built instead at a Sprague Energy-owned oil and logistics terminal across the water known as Mack Point. It was considered as an alternative in lengthy public processes in recent years, and Sprague and opponents of the Sears Island proposal have continued to urge reconsideration for it so far this summer. 

Offshore wind has taken some big steps forward in Maine this year. Federal regulators approved a state research array of floating turbines, which generate power in deep waters far offshore, and are nearing leasing for commercial projects. A new state law calls for Maine to procure three gigawatts of offshore wind by 2040, using union-standard labor to build the projects and a floating wind-focused port.

Formal environmental assessments and site analyses are still pending. But state port authority director Matthew Burns wrote in June that Mack Point’s “physical and logistical constraints, need for significant dredging, and increased costs to taxpayers for land leasing and port construction would result in an expensive and inferior port for Maine compared to a versatile, purpose-built port on Sears Island.”

Still, opponents worry that wetlands and forests on Sears Island could be disrupted by port construction, even if most of the surrounding ecosystem remains intact. 

“Because we have to sacrifice something, let’s sacrifice something irreplaceable, instead of cleaning up a dirty old existing port?” Huber said outside the event. “That’s just ridiculous.” 

Asked if he saw wind as a climate solution more broadly, Huber began to express doubts about how turbine arrays would affect the ocean ecosystem. Fellow opponent Lou MacGregor of Belfast cut in. 

“Right now, what we’re focusing on is protecting Sears Island,” MacGregor said. “We can get to whether we support offshore wind or not after we protect Sears Island.” 

‘Skills that pay the bills’

Scott Cuddy, who until recently was policy director of the Maine Labor Climate Council, emphasized at the recent event that his group is agnostic about the port’s location, focusing instead on the benefits it could bring. Under Maine’s wind procurement law, he said, the port’s labor standards will be the same wherever it ends up. 

“We desperately want to see this happen, because we need to fight climate change, and we need to do it with good jobs,” Cuddy said. 

Cuddy and other labor organizers said state studies indicate that the port project and new wind farms could bring thousands of jobs to coastal Maine towns like Searsport. Local leaders said it could be a boost for shrinking school populations, attracting families to stay in the town long-term. 

“I think there’s been a mindset for a long time among kids, especially in rural Maine, like this was the thing I always heard — ‘You got to leave the state if you want to get a good job,'” said Sam Boss, the director of apprenticeships, workforce and equity for the Maine AFL-CIO. “We’ve got to find ways to keep our people here. And if there’s good opportunities, people will stay for them.”

Boss, Cuddy and others answered locals’ questions about plans for training programs for young people to enter the trades, and the family-sustaining wages and benefits promised by the growing wind industry — both in short-term construction positions and into the future.

“These are the skills that pay the bills, and they’re skills that don’t go away. The work might change — you know, we went from nuclear power plants, to now we’re doing offshore wind power development. But the skills are transferable,” said Nicki Kent, a union electrician who came to talk about her experience working on offshore wind in Rhode Island. “We’ve just got to get screwdrivers and wrenches into kids’ hands.”

Belfast resident Daniel Cowan was taking diligent notes on the back of an envelope while his teenage sons listened from the audience. A Navy veteran now pursuing a degree through the GI Bill, Cowan said he was curious about the possibility of wind industry jobs that could help him and his kids stay in Maine. 

Cowan empathized with attendees who were opposed to building the port on Sears Island, but said he thought the project’s benefits sounded like they would outweigh the costs.

“You’re going to destroy something no matter what you do. I love Sears Island, I think it’s great, I love walking my dogs out there. But I don’t think that’s going to change,” he said. “The world is coming to an end one way or another, and how fast we get there makes a difference.” 

Support from anti-wind groups

The island itself is connected to the mainland by a long causeway, bisected at its start by rail lines that snake around the coastline toward nearby Mack Point. The causeway juts out into Penobscot Bay, and Sears Island opens up at its end, an oval of land covered in trees and flanked by sandy, seaweedy shores. 

On a Saturday morning not long before the Searsport labor dinner, a large group of birders gathered at the gate where the causeway’s pavement continues into the forest. They had come to scout for the tiny, colorful songbirds that rest on the island each year amid long migrations between Canada and the tropics. 

Near the edge of the woods, someone had spray-painted the asphalt road with “Wassumkeag,” the indigenous Wabanaki name for the island. Hand-lettered signs with the web address for the advocacy group Alliance for Sears Island read, “Wind power = Good? On Sears Island = Bad!” 

The state does not plan to site wind turbines on Sears Island itself. Workers at the proposed port would help build and assemble towers and blades in pieces, towing them far out to sea for final assembly. 

Still, anti-wind groups have seized on the proposed project. Lobstermen affiliated with the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA), a Maine-based advocacy group founded in 2023 that focuses partly on opposing offshore wind, spoke out against the port at the recent jobs event. 

“My concern is only that in trying to affect climate change, that we’re going to cause more damage to the environment than climate change is already causing,” said NEFSA officer Dustin Delano, a commercial fisherman from Friendship, Maine. 

NEFSA has since posted signs where the island causeway intersects with the heavily trafficked Route 1 that read “Keep Sears Island wild.” Similar signs showing a crossed-out wind turbine bore the name of Rhode Island-based Green Oceans. Since its founding in 2022, it has focused mostly on opposing Revolution Wind, currently under construction in waters between Rhode Island and Connecticut. 

Many who joined the recent birding trip seemed unaware that Maine’s plans for Sears Island did not involve actually erecting turbines there or close to shore. Others expressed doubts about wind generally. Some did not want to discuss the issue at all, focusing instead on peering through binoculars at the Northern parula, black-throated green warbler or hermit thrush chirping in the trees along the road. 

A few people mentioned concerns that wind projects could harm whales. Scientists have found no evidence to support this claim, which has been linked to fossil fuel-funded disinformation campaigns. Green Oceans’ campaigns in Rhode Island have mimicked the delay and disinformation strategies of climate denialist groups like the Texas Public Policy Foundation, according to Brown University research. 

Climate impacts close to home

The threat of climate change to ecosystems like Sears Island’s, meanwhile, is very real. The Gulf of Maine is one of the fastest-warming water bodies in the world, swelling sea levels, threatening the lobster fishery and leading to more frequent, destructive storms. Maine saw a state-record four federal disaster declarations in 2023 and has received two more already this year. 

The warming trend may affect the migratory birds that draw crowds to Sears Island each year. Warming temperatures are reshaping the length and timing of Maine’s seasons, which, combined with declines in insect populations driven by agriculture and other factors, could threaten the birds’ success, studies show. 

“If you look at decades and decades of patterns, you’ll see that birds are arriving one to two weeks earlier,” said William Broussard, a Midcoast Audubon board member who led the recent Sears Island trip. “If they get here early, they might not have the insects that they depend on to be out, because maybe the trees aren’t leafing out… and that can be really tough.” 

Midcoast Audubon hasn’t taken a position on the wind port issue. It’s a chapter of Maine Audubon, which separately supports the project but is not advocating for one site over the other. Maine Audubon is likewise independent from the National Audubon Society, which advocates for “responsibly sited renewable energy,” including wind, as a climate solution.

‘A terrible dilemma’

Marge Stickler, a birder from Belfast, said she wished the port would be built at Mack Point instead. “I have mixed feelings about what they’re doing here,” she said. “I love coming here… it’s a special place.” 

She had read an opinion piece earlier this year by activist Bill McKibben, founder of the climate groups 350 and Third Act, that urged Mainers to support the wind port even on Sears Island. McKibben wrote for Mother Jones last year that solving climate change will require a new “yes in my backyard” mindset. 

“McKibben wrote that you have to look at the climate as a whole, and this may be a good thing to have here,” Stickler said. “I’m not sure — why did he write that for Maine, he lives in Vermont, but… he said it’s better to have it and it’s better to have it here, maybe.” 

Dave Andrews, a retired engineer from South Bristol, Maine, struck a different tone as he trailed after the other birders. He’d worked on Superfund cleanups and brownfield solar projects in his career, and said he’d often heard “not in my backyard” sentiments from neighbors who were worried about viewshed impacts or a change in a place’s character. 

“If it’s a Walmart shopping center, I guess you have a valid statement,” he said. “But when it comes to something like this, this is a different balance.” 

Andrews called the port’s siting a “terrible dilemma.” But he felt swayed by the urgency of climate change and the fact that the project would leave much of Sears Island intact. As permitting and siting progress in the coming months, he said he hoped others who love the island would be able to accept the sacrifice.

“I don’t think there is a choice,” he said.

This story has been updated to clarify Maine Audubon’s position on the project and to correct Scott Cuddy’s title.

Offshore wind port siting raises new conflicts for coastal Mainers, environmental activists is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Clean energy is aligned with conservative values. So says North Carolina Rep. Kyle Hall, a Republican legislator in his fifth term from a small town near Winston-Salem.

“It’s conservative to support market competition, consumer savings, property rights, and innovation,” Hall said at an event last November, when he received an award for spearheading a bill to promote rooftop solar and other clean energy measures in 2023.

The event also showcased what pollsters have known for years: Energy independence, less pollution, economic development, and other aspects of clean energy are popular with voters across the political spectrum.

Still, last year’s defeats and half-wins in North Carolina – where Republicans control both houses of the state legislature – show those factors aren’t always enough to propel policies favoring solar, wind, and electric vehicles forward. Obstacles remain in this purple state, including powerful special interests, misinformation, and individual lawmakers who have the power to make or break legislation.

“Polling consistently shows overwhelming public support statewide — in every community and across political ideologies — for more clean energy and for freer energy markets,” Carson Butts, the director of Conservatives for Clean Energy North Carolina, said in an email. But, he acknowledged, “clearly, we have more work to do.”

‘The perfect example’

Advocates like Butts believe they’re making progress in winning Republicans over to their cause, and there’s evidence for that.

In 2013, for the first time in over 100 years, the North Carolina GOP assumed control of the governor’s mansion and both chambers of the General Assembly. Members of their ranks immediately sought to weaken clean energy policies, with some success. Today, state-level solar tax incentives are gone, and land-based wind turbines are scant albeit legal. 

But strong bipartisan support for clean energy also started to congeal, culminating in 2021, when the legislature and a Democratic governor elected in 2016 crafted a law to zero out electricity sector carbon emissions by midcentury. It remains the only such bipartisan measure in the region.

John Szoka, who helped write that law, may be the greatest testament to the efforts of right-leaning clean energy advocates. A former legislator who took office the first year of the GOP trifecta, today he leads the Conservative Energy Network, a nationwide association of state-based groups like Conservatives for Clean Energy. 

“I’m the perfect example,” Szoka said in an interview, about how conservatives can evolve through education.

“When I first ran for office, I thought solar only existed because of subsidies and a bunch of crazy stuff,” he said. “But then, I ended up being a proponent for it. I made the transition because I had people who are trusted conservatives tell me what the truth was.”

‘Kind of a victory’

Though Republicans regained a legislative supermajority in 2022, the bipartisan emissions law faced no attacks last year. A largely symbolic measure to ban ocean-based wind turbines in state-controlled waters also never got a hearing. 

“Sometimes we define success as something that didn’t happen,” said Brian Turner, a former Democratic state representative who now directs policy for Audubon North Carolina. “We didn’t get another wind moratorium,” he noted at a November energy conference. “That’s something we were able to bottle up and keep from moving.”

What’s more, Republicans allocated at least $10 million in matching funds for an avalanche of clean energy grants headed to North Carolina thanks to federal initiatives like the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. 

“There was significant funding allocated for clean energy related items, and that wasn’t necessarily a given,” said Cassie Gavin, policy director at the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association. “Every state hasn’t done that.”

Rep. Hall also moved to raise the current cap on leasing rooftop solar from 1% of Duke Energy electricity sales to 10%, a key change for businesses and nonprofits looking to rely more renewable energy. After paring down the scope of the bill to satisfy Duke, it cleared the house with just 10 “no” votes — a milestone he called significant.

“Being able to carry it through,” Hall said in an interview, “I think was kind of a victory.”

‘A winning issue’ 

This activity aligns with poll after poll showing that voters across the political spectrum support wind, solar, and other forms of clean energy. Last year, a trio of surveys continued that trend. 

The left-leaning North Carolina League of Conservation Voters found divisions between conservative and liberal voters on fossil fuels, but strong majorities in favor of “solar energy,” “clean energy,” and “renewable energy.”

Szoka’s group found that 67% of voters support community solar — in which individuals pay in for a share of a large solar farm — including 59% of Republicans. 

And Conservatives for Clean Energy found that 73% of voters, including a majority of Republicans, would be more likely to support a candidate who backed policies to encourage “wind, solar, and waste-to-energy technologies.”

Consultant Paul Shumaker conducted the latter poll, a survey of 500 North Carolina voters last spring. In terms of running election campaigns, he said during a presentation of the results, “anything over 70% is a winning issue.” 

But lawmakers didn’t always heed these surveys. 

Shumaker’s poll, for instance, found that more than three quarters of voters, including 72% of Republicans, favored more competition in the electricity market.

Slightly smaller majorities said they would support “current legislation that would authorize a study to examine the public benefits of restructuring options for the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity in North Carolina.”

The question references House Bill 503, aimed at analyzing the pros and cons of Duke joining a competitive wholesale electricity market, among other reforms. Like similar measures introduced in 2019 and 2021, it saw no movement last year. 

“With the overwhelming numbers of voters supporting competition, why can’t we even study it?” asked Kevin Martin, the director of the Carolina Utility Customers Association, after the presentation.

“That’s a question for lawmakers,” Shumaker answered. He then relayed an adage he said came from the late historian David McCullough: “Special interests drive the narrative.” 

‘Special interests drive the narrative’ 

Duke has a long public record of opposing the market reform study and did not respond to a request for comment for this story. But it wasn’t the only special interest that influenced policy last year. 

The state budget prohibited an effort by Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, to reduce pollution from the state’s transportation sector. Called the Advanced Clean Truck Rule, it would have required manufacturers to sell increasing percentages of electric heavy-duty vehicles. 

The provision originated in the House and endured when the Senate passed its version of the state spending plan. Still, Hall said he fought to remove it in conference — to no avail.  

“That sent a signal to electric vehicle companies across the country that you’re not welcome in North Carolina,” Hall said.

The source of the provision, Hall believes, was the North Carolina Chamber, the business lobby that represents a host of companies including truck makers Daimler Truck and Volvo Group. “They wanted that in the budget,” he said, “and like Duke Energy, they wield a lot of power.”

The Chamber celebrated the budget language on its website in September. “Government mandates and intervention into the market would stifle… innovation and investment, as well as increase costs in new trucks, on which nearly all of our members rely,” it said.

The lesson, said Hall, is that companies with a vested interest in clean energy policy — in this case manufacturers and fleet managers who want their companies to go electric — need to do a better job of educating both lawmakers and the trade groups they belong to.   

“Groups like Duke and the [electric] co-ops are doing it,” Hall said. “This side of the energy sector needs to do it as well.”

Still, the clean energy economy remains nascent compared to the entrenched business interests that benefit, at least in the short term, from the status quo. That was certainly true last year, when the well-organized building lobby faced off against the more diffuse energy efficiency industry.

State standards for insulation thickness, window quality, and other energy-saving building features in new single-family homes have remained virtually unchanged for over a decade. 

The state’s Building Code Council sought to change that, tying updated standards to a 2021 international model code. The move was expected to add an average of $5,000 to the cost of a new house but generate a positive cash flow immediately by lowering energy bills. 

The math was generated by an independent government lab and confirmed anecdotally by green builders, who supported the code updates. But the powerful North Carolina Home Builders Association refused to accept it. A major campaign donor and presence in the legislature, the builders lobby instead claimed the average cost would exceed $20,000. 

With the state in dire need of affordable housing, the builders’ reasoning was potent – convincing several Democrats and every single Republican to vote for a measure to reject the update and freeze the 2009-era codes in place until 2031. 

“We do have an affordable housing crisis,” said Hall, a realtor by trade who’s observed soaring home prices even in his small town of King. And if the builders had less “burdensome regulations,” he said, they could build homes more cost-effectively. “I think that was a compelling argument.”

‘The Paul Wall’

Special interests aren’t the only ones with sway in Raleigh. Sen. Paul Newton, a Cabarrus County Republican and former Duke Energy North Carolina president, is widely viewed as the arbiter of clean energy policy for the Senate. 

A lead negotiator for the 2021 decarbonization law, his positions frequently align with Duke’s. But he also asserts himself on bills that don’t directly concern the utility, and his influence extends beyond his chamber. 

For four years in a row, he was thought to be the sticking point for government building efficiency legislation — a measure with no organized opposition and few detractors in the House. The 2023 Conservatives for Clean Energy poll found the measure had 79% support, including 68% of Republicans. Last year, the measure was reintroduced in the House with bipartisan support, but never got a hearing. 

Newton’s key imprint from 2023 was his bill to promote nuclear, a carbon-free but non-renewable power source. The measure is more message than substance, but one key provision removes a requirement that Duke pursue more cost-effective measures like energy efficiency and renewables before trying to build a new nuclear plant. 

“We support energy efficiency as the most affordable energy resource, and so we remain concerned about the changes to the [Certificate of Convenience and Public Necessity] section,” said Gavin of the Sustainable Energy Association.

When the bill first cleared the House, it included language sought by Hall to increase the solar leasing cap. That provision was rejected by Newton and other senators in the conference committee between the two chambers. “The Senate just stood their ground,” Hall said, “and flat out said ‘no.’” 

Though his solar leasing bill is still eligible this year, Hall lamented its failure to become law in 2023. “That’s probably the most disappointing thing from the session,” he said.

Dan Crawford, director of governmental relations with the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters, said the situation was indicative of the dynamic on energy policy at the General Assembly.

In the House, “you have conservatives that are trying to lead and do something positive,” he said. “But then you have the Paul Wall in the Senate.”

Newton didn’t respond to a request for a comment for this story.

Along with Hall, many observers point to Rep. Larry Strickland, a Johnston County Republican in his fourth term, as an emerging leader on energy in the House. 

But they also note the absence of Szoka, who left in 2022, and former Republican representative Chuck McGrady, who now sits on the state’s Board of Transportation.

“Those are two really big losses,” Crawford said.

‘Separating fact from fiction’

Szoka says one reason Republicans don’t always seem to follow the will of the majority of voters traces back to conservative grassroots circles.  

Of the GOP voters his group polled who self-identified as “more conservative” on energy than their party as a whole, a whopping 64% said there was either no reason to be concerned about climate change or that more research was needed. 

“So, that raises a question,” Szoka said. “How do you get elected? What’s going on in Republican grassroots organizations? Where do they get their information from?”

While outlets like Fox News have largely abandoned outright climate denial, misinformation persists about climate science, renewable energy sources, and energy policy. Throughout much of last year, for example, conservative media amplified false claims that offshore wind development was killing whales along the Atlantic Coast, an analysis by the liberal group Media Matters found.

Former president Donald Trump also trumpets such falsehoods, deepening distrust of the clean energy transition among Republican voters. And numerous studies have shown social media algorithms tend to push some users toward conspiracy theories and other misinformation.

At the same time, activists fighting solar, wind, and transmission projects, sometimes backed by fossil fuel interests, sow untruths in otherwise receptive or neutral rural communities. 

“That stuff is still prevalent in a lot of rural areas, because there are people who actively work against clean energy, and they perpetuate misinformation,” Szoka said. Debunking it — a key mission of his organization — takes time and patience, he said, but it can work. “You’ve got to convince them,” he said, “and separate fact from fiction.”

Even so, with districts increasingly gerrymandered for partisan advantage, Republican candidates who support clean energy may never campaign on it: it doesn’t necessarily help them win a primary, and it rarely distinguishes them from their Democratic opponents. 

“Most people don’t talk about it enough,” Szoka said, especially considering clean energy’s importance to unaffiliated voters – now the largest cohort in the state’s electorate. “And in some of these tight races, conservatives should talk about it more and the race wouldn’t be quite as tight.”

Still, advancing the clean energy transition may not be a simple matter of translating popular polling issues into policy. As politics becomes more nationalized and more polarized, with top Republicans deriding wind and solar, there’s some evidence that voters could be following suit.

Conservatives for Clean Energy has conducted polling for eight years. In 2015, nearly 87% of voters were more likely to vote for candidates who supported wind and solar. But that figure has seen a steady, if slight, decline ever since, and last year reached a new low of 73%.

The fossil fuel industry has also likely benefited from the centuries-old term “natural gas,” which despite its coinage describes a fuel that contributes substantial heat-warming pollutants to the atmosphere.

While most voters in the Conservative Energy Network poll believe we should put “less emphasis” on developing coal and oil, most said production of natural gas should stay “about the same.” Similarly, the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters poll found that 68% of all voters, including 55% of “left-leaning voters,” had a favorable view of natural gas. 

Hall, who doesn’t advocate a full transition to “things like solar and wind,” believes the key is focusing on not just economics, but independence.

“If you ask people, ‘do you want to be energy independent, or do you want to rely on China and Russia for your energy,’ everybody’s going to vote for America first,” Hall said. “When I speak to constituents, their number one concern is that when they flip the switch that the light turns on — and if you could do it cheaper, cleaner, and made right here in America, that’s what they care about.”

Some way or another, clean energy advocates on the right are going to have to figure out what works. For all the intrigue in this year’s elections, legislative district lines leave little doubt that Republicans will retain control of the General Assembly. And left-leaning advocates say they’re not the best messengers in that case. 

“There is an important role for Conservatives for Clean Energy to be that validator on the economy and clean energy,” Crawford said.

Polls show most conservatives like clean energy. So why isn’t the North Carolina GOP doing more to support it? is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

A bipartisan energy efficiency bill was indefinitely delayed last fall amid a clash between a major conservative lobbying group and one of the state’s most prominent Republican lawmakers, according to previously unreported emails obtained by the Energy News Network. 

Just before an expected vote to let Ohio utilities offer voluntary energy saving programs to customers, the Ohio chapter of Americans for Prosperity issued a “key vote alert” on Oct. 9, encouraging state House leadership to pull the bill and urging members to vote “no” if it came to the floor.

“[T]he last thing Ohioans need is another mandatory program being foisted upon them,” said the alert. But the programs allowed by the bill would be voluntary, and in addition to that mischaracterization, the group claimed they could cost consumers five times more than what the bill would let utilities charge. 

House Majority Floor Leader Bill Seitz, a Cincinnati Republican and major critic of the state’s former energy efficiency standard, is a co-sponsor of the bipartisan bill, House Bill 79. He pounced on the obvious math error in his reply.

“For this egregious error alone, their entire screed should be disregarded,” Seitz wrote in a response shared with House Republican caucus members. “They have not even passed the third grade guarantee!”

The exchange, which Seitz recently shared with the Energy News Network, offers a glimpse at the continued, prominent role of conservative lobbying groups in shaping Ohio energy policy.

Rulings by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio have blocked utilities from offering programs to help customers save energy after the state’s previous energy efficiency targets were gutted by the scandal-tainted House Bill 6 in 2019. 

HB 79 would let regulated utilities voluntarily reintroduce such programs, subject to lower targets, cost caps and requirements for the programs to save money. The bill would also require utilities offering energy efficiency programs to provide ratepayers with opportunities to opt out.

The bipartisan bill was reported out from the House Public Utilities Committee last June, clearing the way for a full vote in the House. The legislation’s future is unclear, but supporters, including its Democratic co-sponsor, Rep. Bride Rose Sweeney of Westlake, hope it can find traction again this year. 

House Speaker Jason Stephens did not respond to the Energy News Network’s questions about when he plans to bring the bill to the floor for a full House vote.

Americans for Prosperity is a political advocacy group founded by David and Charles Koch. The Center for Media and Democracy, a progressive watchdog group, classifies it as an “astroturf,” or pseudo grassroots organization, which represents the interests of Koch Industries.

“AFP would have you do nothing to combat soaring prices” for energy, Seitz wrote to his fellow Republican caucus members. “That’s not ‘Americans for Prosperity.’ That’s ‘Americans for Power Brownouts.’”

Seitz serves on the board of directors for the American Legislative Exchange Council, another conservative group with ties to the Koch family. Seitz fought for years against Ohio’s former clean energy standard and played a key role in shaping relevant parts of HB 6 that gutted it.

Last-minute timing

Seitz noted that AFP Ohio did not testify at any committee hearings, provide written comments or otherwise contact him as a primary co-sponsor before urging a general “no” vote. He also objected to claims that the bill mirrors language from the federal Inflation Reduction Act, noting that programs under that law are not eligible under HB 79.

Donovan O’Neil, state director for AFP Ohio, defended the group’s timing in emailed comments to the Energy News Network. 

“We reserved our comments and engagement on HB 79 for a time and place we felt it would have the greatest impact on accomplishing our end goal — which is killing this costly harmful legislation threatening Ohio ratepayers,” O’Neil said, adding that the group’s primary focus before last June was on tax and education issues.

Asked for his response to Seitz’s substantive criticisms, O’Neil stuck by his characterization of HB 79 as an example of legislation to “empower cronyists through big government mandates over free market principles.”

“I think that their arguments were misleading,” Sweeney said. Significantly, the bill requires utilities to show that programs will save more money than the costs of the electricity waste they’ll avoid. So, customers as a whole will not have their bills go up. “That’s what’s lost oftentimes” in debates about energy efficiency, she said.

The clash between two conservative parties — Seitz and AFP Ohio — is fascinating, said Dave Anderson, policy and communications manager for the Energy and Policy Institute.

“It just seems like renewable energy and energy efficiency are always at the losing end of these legislative fights and fossil fuels are at the winning end,” Anderson said, “because of where the political influence and spending are coming from.”

Although AFP Ohio testified against HB 6 in 2019, its comments focused on that law’s bailouts for FirstEnergy’s former nuclear plants, and expressly stated its opposition to the then-existing clean energy standards. “So clearly they haven’t changed their stand on that,” Anderson said.

HB 79 had broad support during committee hearings from a wide range of groups, although it wasn’t unanimous. The Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel and the Northwest Ohio Aggregation Council opposed the bill due to concerns about accountability, charges for so-called lost revenues, and the sufficiency of opt-out provisions. The Ohio Manufacturers’ Association expressed concerns about those issues, as well as bill language that could be read to let utilities shut down renewable resources without the owners’ consent.

Sweeney said some of the concerns were addressed by requiring two opportunities for residential customers to opt out.

“The fact that customers can opt out at all is more than fair in terms of these programs,” said attorney Rob Kelter with the Environmental Law & Policy Center. Consumers don’t get any choice to opt out of other utility bill riders. And the substitute version of HB 79 reported out of committee gives residential customers two chances to say no, he said.

In Kelter’s view, AFP Ohio’s last-minute objection to HB 79 was “a shame, because it seems like the facts just don’t matter.”

“It’s cheaper to run these programs than it is to purchase the added energy the customers would use absent the programs,” Kelter explained. That benefits both participating and non-participating customers, he noted, because it reduces the need to buy more expensive peak power. 

Also, while consumers could make energy efficiency choices on their own, such as buying more efficient appliances, many people on tight budgets won’t make those investments without a utility rebate or other incentive to speed up their payback, Kelter said. 

“I remain optimistic that we will have a floor vote on this important legislation at some point” this year, Seitz said.

Yet “it’s a complicated bill,” Sweeney said, so she sees some work ahead for her and other supporters to explain its nuances and consumer protections to other lawmakers. “Compared to HB 6, this is a really good step in the right direction,” she said.

How a Koch-linked group stalled a bipartisan Ohio energy efficiency bill at the last minute is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.